Category — Television

A memo sent to employees yesterday heralded a reduction in employment of as much as 25% for the ABC News staff of 1400. This isn’t the first reduction at ABC News, but that won’t be comfort to those who are being let go.

Ad revenues are down across the board and network television news just isn’t dominating the airwaves like it used to. Then there is the shift in how the public gets its news these days. Blogs, like The Disney Blog, or social media sites, like Twitter, are the new news delivery vehicles. It’s a revolution that ABC will just have to adjust to.

Robert Garcia, who used to work for ABC News, sees this as Disney trying to fit in with the new reality for news. But he’s not exactly happy with how they’re going about doing it.

When it times of tough economics, the nations television viewing habits turn toward the sit-com. The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and others got their start by riffing on the American family dealing with daily situations. ABC seems to have hit about the formula that works for our present day situation with “Modern Family”.

“Modern Family” is the most critically acclaimed and popular new comedy of the TV season, the centerpiece of ABC’s Wednesday lineup and already renewed for a second season. Not only does it fulfill a comedy’s central mission — provide genuine laughs — it nudges preconceptions and isn’t afraid to show some heart amid a sea of snark and irony on television.

“I know we’re not curing cancer,” said Burrell, who portrays the earnest goofball dad Phil Dunphy, “but it feels nice to see people affected by the show.”

I’m not a bit sit-com watcher, but I love Modern Family. It makes me laugh, which sometimes is just what I need these days. Do you watch the show? What do you like about it?

More in this profile by the AP.

**spoilers begin immediately**

Losties. Oh, my losties. We have been apart for eight months! Eight long months! I’ve missed you! And I’ve missed the brain melt I get every week when watching Lost.

And now, just when I thought I understood time travel and resurrections and smoke monsters, I am confronted with a new LOST mystery: TWO REALITIES. Oh, when will it end? (I know, this season. Don’t remind me.)

Let’s get to it. We’ll begin *sob* with the last few seconds of Season 5’s finale where Juliet is smashing the bomb with a rock. Then the famed white screen o’lost appears and we are apparently in…

PRESENT DAY LOS ANGELES

JACK is staring out the window at a white cloud and is transfixed. He comes out of his daydreaming and looks around. He’s on a plane. A familiar looking stewardess walks down the aisle and offers him a drink on the house. Jack looks across the aisle to see ROSE. They feel a little turbulence and begin to talk about planes and how  they like to stay in the air. The turbulence increases and then…nothing. The pilot corrects his course and they are fine.

And at this point my heart is sinking. It worked. They did it. The Island never happened. And now we get to see what WOULD have happened (what DID happen?) to our beloved Losties.

[Read more →]

Disney is calling it quits for Ugly Betty after its fourth season on ABC. A pretty respectable run for a show that was basically a retread of a soap opera from Mexico.

I never really got into the show, I was not the target market, to say the least. But the numbers it pulled in its first season were wonderful. So was the acting and writing. Hopefully Disney will find somewhere else in its project pool for members of the cast, especially America Ferrera.

ABC chief Steve McPherson says that choosing this early in the season to make it the last gives the writers time to pen a satisfying conclusion to the show. If that’s the case, how would you like the story to end? Should Betty get her due?

I’m loving this Youtube video made in the style of Jack Bauer’s 24. It is a real time look with multiple camera angles of the events surrounding the crash of Flight 815.

Thos ten minutes really got me excited about the February 2nd premier of LOSTs final season. February 2nd is also Groundhog day, I wonder if that tells us something about the events of the final season.

ABC has picked up two dramas and one comedy to help round out their schedule. Successful drama pilots, both from ABC Studios and both medical dramas, are “Off the Map” and “Body of Evidence”. Neither looks like a LOST replacement to me.

The comedy is “Happy Endings.” A rather unfortunate name if you ask me. But it should fit well on Wednesday night, which Disney has been cleaning up with except for Hank.

(Via the THR)

I have to say I’m in agreement with David at Disney-O-Rama that the folks organizing the petition to get Disneyland to turn Tom Sawyer Island into LOST island are barking up the wrong tree.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t appreciate finding more ABC shows represented in the parks. Just keep it at California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In fact, if they wanted to do an ABC Drama weekend the way they used to do Soap Opera weekends, I think that would be a big hit.

Why not a restaurant themed to the latest ABC shows. Decorate individual dining rooms with actual set pieces from the shows, put scripts on the walls, and costumes on the serving staff. Even some cheesy improvised comedy like they used to have at Soap Opera Bistro would be fine.

But converting a kid’s play area into a tropical island for a show that’s mainly for adults, that’s a wrong turn down the LOST highway.

It has been quite a while since I have posted (I went to Disneyland Paris!) but I was able to watch a repeat of Modern Family tonight. I saw it when it first aired, but watching it again tonight was an unexpected treat! The test of a good show for me is its “rewatchability” – how funny it is a second or third (or even fourth) time. Modern Family was just as funny if not more the second time around. I remembered the basic premise but I had forgotten the smaller jokes- which were plentiful!

The bottom line for me here is that Modern Family stood up to my rewatchability test. It’s funny and heartwarming and that’s a show I can get behind! Are you watching the show? What keeps you coming back?